1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, in general, to a bouyant marine fender commonly used as a protection for boats, docks, piers or the like and more particularly to a novel marine fender of integral, unitary construction capable of distributing loads into the swiveled mooring line.
2. Background of the Prior Art
In the past, it has been the conventional practice to employ resilient fenders for ships, piers or docks. As an example, as vessels approach a pier or dock, there is nearly always a substantial impact, and often receiving the impact between the ship's hull and pier or dock, it is the usual practice to provide a fender or fenders on the ship or dock, or both. Previous fenders were commonly made of rolled or coiled mat and other natural hard fiber material. These types of fenders have low compressional resilience, high water absorption and low rot resistance and hence are not suitably effective or satisfactory for fending large vessels under repeated impacts.
Another prior fending device is of the pneumatic kind and wherein the compressional resiliency may be adjusted by inflating or deflating the fender. Although the resiliency can be adjusted, this type of fender is of a single shock absorbing stage resiliency and cannot automatically take into account various impacts or varying loads applied to the fender. Furthermore, none of the aforementioned fenders adequately distribute applied load forces into the mooring line or the line securing the fender to the ship or dock. Therefore, the full absorption of loads and shocks is experienced by the fender itself.
Therefore, a long standing need exists for providing a fender which is integral in its construction, adapted to relate to varying loads and degrees of compressional resiliency and which is capable of transferring impact loads to its supporting line.